Axor claims that he and the Zacharians have identified seemingly significant regularities and recurrences in Foredweller symbols and asks:
"'Who knows where that may lead future scholarship? To the very revelation of Christ's universality, that will in time bring all sentient beings into his church?'"
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER NINETEEN, p. 403.
But they have not begun to decipher the symbols yet. In fact, will that even be possible with no comparable texts in known languages? See Rosetta Stone.
Earlier, Axor had asked Diana:
"'If science can show that the gospel account of Christ is not myth but biography; and if it then finds that his ministry was, in empirical fact, universal - would not you, for example, my dear, would not you decide it was only reasonable to accept him as your Saviour?'"
-op. cit., CHAPTER ONE, p. 210.
The word "if" appears twice here, also the words "science" and "empirical." The Gospels are certainly not biography, telling us nothing about the life of their central figure apart from his brief public ministry. These documents propagate the belief that he was the Messiah who died and rose in fulfillment of scriptural prophecies. In this sense, the Gospels are propaganda. They also express the perennial myth, or meaningful story, of death and resurrection. See here.
If science proved an account, then acceptance of that account would no longer be a matter of faith whereas, if acceptance of an account remains a matter of faith, then it is not proved. Axor seeks the impossible.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't think it's totally implausible for Fr. Axor to seek for evidence of Christ possibly becoming incarnate on other worlds. Some Catholics and Protestants have had similar thoughts or speculations in our real world.
Sean
Sean,
But at most it will be evidence that some accept and others don't, as on Earth?
Axor wants proof of a matter of faith. I think that that is a contradiction.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Your first point, I agree. As for the second, I agree that "faith" ultimately has to be accepted as it was defined in the Letter to the Hebrews. And skeptics still seem to have a hard time "explaining" things like Lourdes of the Shroud of Turin, for example.
Sean
Sean,
The Shroud was carbon dated to the century when it was first displayed and a Church investigation at that time said that the artist had been interviewed.
I cannot explain Lourdes - or many other phenomena.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I've already pointed out how unsatisfactory that carbon dating was, using as a sample material taken from a LATER patch sewn onto the Shroud. And I've read of how the method used for weaving the Shroud has been dated as unique to the first century AD.
Sean
Sean,
I remember that there was some objection to the carbon dating. Taken from a LATER patch? That cannot have been realized at the time. What is the current state of Shroud research?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't know, frankly. Most of what I knew about the Shroud came from the book A DOCTOR AT CALVARY, an analysis of the Shroud and the Crucified One it depicts from a medical POV. But the book is now rather old and probably outdated. And was written before the disputed carbon dating of that patch material from the Shroud.
I think I do recall that the owners and custodians of the Shroud, the House of Savoy and the Archbishop of Turin, are resistant to much more material being taken from it. Testing can be DESTRUCTIVE, as we know.
Sean
"But they have not begun to decipher the symbols yet. In fact, will that even be possible with no comparable texts in known languages? See Rosetta Stone."
For a possible way to decipher such texts, see "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper.
It's a short story and available on Project Gutenberg, so I don't want to spoil the story by saying how the characters learn the language of the civilization they are excavating.
Kaor, Jim!
I've reread "Omnilingual" not that long ago, good story! And the method seen there for deciphering the alien, non-human language seen there might actually be practical in real life someday.
Ad astra! Sean
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